I have to agree on every point.
I have to agree on every point.
Okay NY Sub Elite I think we all got the point that NYC is the end all for the trials. My god give it a rest. It may be a great place to have the trials in terms of location but the timing sucks.
It is also ridiculous if any of you think the sub 2:20 guys dont matter. 2:22 is the B standard, if they only wanted sub 2:12 guys then they would have set the standard at 2:12 and it would be a race against 5 guys. However the standard has been set at 2:22 which goes make anyone running under that standard important. A larger field benefits everyone. The fact this race is 6 months earlier than normal does make a difference especially since a lot of guys building up to qualify often reached the standard the fall before the spring race. Now that has been taken away. If you are building up for the trials you essentially have to qualify now this fall because there is not a lot of great qualifying races this spring.
This is key to many guys trying to qualify. The only ones out there stating that the 2:22 guy does not matter is the guy who does not have the ability to qualify themselves.
Spectators? "tens of thousands" to watch a crit course thru the park?Dont we all wish! plus last time I looked there were no "canyons" to be navigated thru in central park (concrete or otherwise).
NY sub elite wrote:
Watch, specatators in the tens of thousands will be cheering all the marathoners on as the navigate through the great canyons of our historic metropolis to new PR's. Any inconvienice in timing is trivial compared to the honor and media exposure you get running in NY.
Thye picked NYC in November to most accurately mimic the coniditions of Beijing in August.
That's a good point, if anything, the course and conditions probably should mimic Beijing.
I doubt they'll be much in the way of crowds, especially if it's a Friday. The NYC Marathon is an event to the avg NYer who will go out and watch, but outside of the serious running community most people will probably barely even know about the trials.
There are plenty of spring marathons in the US and Europe, so it's crazy to say you have to qualify this fall or never.
Are times from international races like London, Rotterdam and Hamburg accepted as qualifying times? Those are all fast Spring courses.
Yes they do count but I hate to break it to you but most of us trying to qualify can't drop that kind of money to fly to Europe to run a marahton. The tickets prices on flights are outrageous right now not to mention the Euro being very strong. It used to be cheap for Americans to go to Europe but not anymore especially on a budget. They are fast races but not a lot of us can afford to go on our own.
And that is seriously LAUGHABLE if you think they chose NYC to mimic the weather in China. Give me a break, money was the factor not weather. The avg. temp in Beijing is in the low 80s in August so I seriously doubt NYC in the fall is even close to mimicing the weather in Beijing. Actually the women in Boston have a better chance of mimicing the Beijing weather. Seriously think before you post.
A ton of support going to US men from Chicago this fall. Another ton of support going to US men in Austin next February. But, alas, woe is me! Cry, cry, cry. I could list many other races, but all will be swept away by a river of tears from the nearly talented.
I believe that the reason the Trials are in New York is because Mary Wittenberg wanted to prove that she is the most powerful person in the sport. It is all a power trip. It is a horrible venue on a horrible date that does nothing for the athletes. The real question is who are the pawns that allowed her to pull their strings?
As for spectators, besides interested locals, a key element is that there will be thousands of non-NY-er American runners in town, all but several hundred of which are the "tourist" marathoners so despised by most of you on LetsRun.com for getting in your way on race day...
...for you people who claim "they" gotta "market the sport better," this is the most target-rich addressable market and, "a priori", presumably the most willing adopters for a broader audience and apprecation of the Olympic-level efforts. You have to put yourself in front of these people, instead of doing your thing in another locale and hoping they notice.
You can disagree with a lot of aspects of a NYC trial race, but if you want running and T&F to be "marketed better," NYC and Boston have by FAR the best value proposition in that regard.
Now, if you DON'T want American pro runners to earn a better living, then, have the trial races in Utah at the St. George Marathon. Might be the fastest course in the US.
Finally, before you assume that NYRR has an evil plot of self-aggrandizement and self-dealing, remember that crime investigations focus on motive as well as opportunity - and key here is that the NYRR does NOT need a trial race in order to thrive. How would taking on what many of you claim is an under-watched event (that is probably goign to be a monumental pain in the a-- and, if I had to guess, strongly cash-flow-negative for NYRR) advance such a purported nefarious plot?
Full disclosure: If I had a vote it would have been to have both the M&W trials be folded into the main race of the BAA Boston Marathon.
From what I was told that is the way that most people voted. This was not a situation where the most votes won. It was a situation where 2 or 3 people asked for input and then ignored it.
News Flash....The Olympic Trials is not an effective marketing tool. It is to choose the members of the Olympic team, and to incetivize regional class athletes to get some national recognition. By its very nature it is not a big-ticket event.
There are a few other small races in the US that can accomplish this: The NY Marathon, The Boston Marathon, The Chicago Marathon.....you may have heard of them.
Top runners want to run these races and make $. The money they make from the trials amounts to fukall, on a relative basis.
This trials format is not at all commerical, and the economics of having the race in one of the most expensive cities in the world can hardly be rationalized. We are the intelligentsia of the sport, while the marketing efforts target the proles. The proles couldnt care at all about the trials, except who is in the top 3.
Joseph McVeigh wrote:
the NYRR does NOT need a trial race in order to thrive.
The NYRR doesn't need the Trials to thrive financially, no, but they need it for their egos and were more than willing to buy it.
EXACTLY, the same exposure could have been received if BOTH the women's and men's trials were held in Boston. I actually think more people regard Boston as the bigger marathon when it comes to the average American who knows nothing about running. Everytime someone finds out I run marahtons they ask me if I have run Boston.
So I am tired of hearing that the men's trials had to be held in NYC to foster distance running in the US. This could have been accomplished in Boston and also benefited both the male and female athletes in terms of exposure and timing for the Olympics.
This decision was based on NYRRC wanting the trials and had the influence and power to persuade the powers to be to choose NYC without regard to the athlete. NYRRC will probably not make money on the actual race but there will not be a big lose either. They are running loops in Central Park which is done EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. These racesd are very cheap for NYRRC to put on. Logistically it is not expensive (i.e. not many cops are needed for road closures etc). They may even benefit with the media exposure this gives them advertising the Trials along with their marathon but lets all be honest here, how mush is this REALLY costing NYRRC. The trials have SPONSORS which most likely picks up most of the tab and the prize money is not provided by NYRRC. So where is this huge lose coming from by putting on this race Joseph?
Joseph McVeigh wrote:
Full disclosure: If I had a vote it would have been to have both the M&W trials be folded into the main race of the BAA Boston Marathon.
I think this would've been the ideal situation as well. The Kenyan men used to do this, maybe still do. You've got the crowds, a great course and the potential for a very big payday, if you were to win the OT and do well in the overall. I think there was some problem with competing sponsors between the BAA and the OT and the need for separate races, altough I don't know if that's true or not.
Hopefully the out of towners in the city for the NYCM will watch the trials rather than going to Spamalot that day.
It used to be NYRR had the marathon and the leggs mini marathon, now they've got the mens 8k, a rejuvenated 5th ave mile, the randalls island track meet and the new 1/2 marathon which will probably just get bigger. They are doing an awesome job promoting the sport for the world class runners. I'd like to see them take over the Millrose games as well.
Great post. Agree 126.2% Especially about having it in Boston, since that would more closely approximate the timing of past years. The gun could go off for both the men's and women's races an hour before the traditional BAA.
Do count wrote:
EXACTLY, the same exposure could have been received if BOTH the women's and men's trials were held in Boston. I actually think more people regard Boston as the bigger marathon when it comes to the average American who knows nothing about running. Everytime someone finds out I run marahtons they ask me if I have run Boston.
All you say is true, except that is, for the blowhard New Yorkers who consider themselves the center of the universe. Unfortunately they were able to influence the decision on the selection of the trials site.
Well said Joe.
ambassador orange wrote:
Hopefully the out of towners in the city for the NYCM will watch the trials rather than going to Spamalot that day.
If I'm running a marathon the next day, I think it would be better for my legs to spend the 2+ hours sitting in a theater than standing in Central Park.
ambassador orange wrote:
Joseph McVeigh wrote:Full disclosure: If I had a vote it would have been to have both the M&W trials be folded into the main race of the BAA Boston Marathon.
AND Ambassador Orange wrote:
I think this would've been the ideal situation as well. I think there was some problem with competing sponsors between the BAA and the OT and the need for separate races, altough I don't know if that's true or not.
.
That is exactly the problem. You have race sponsors, USATF sponsors, and US Olympic Committee sponsors (and in parallel cases, IAAF sponsors).
Once the word Olympic is used in an event title, the USOC trumps all and negotiates in a position of power; this has grown over the years.
When the women's marathon trials was held in Houston (in 1992?), this was an issue after the event - the race had Continental airlines as a sponsor, USATF (TAC at the time) had an airline sponsor, and the USOC had an airline sponsor, all of whom wanted their piece of recognition.
Sponsors include those already in place, as well as sponsor categories that are not yet filled, e.g., the USOC might not have a computer sponsor in place, but they retain the right to secure one at "some time" in the future. The USOC (or USATF) may release those categories to the local organizing commmittees, but there is neither a requirement to do so, nor any time period to do so. Thus, they could release it the month before and give the local organizers authority to approach the local company, but those local companies become less interested the closer one gets to the event.
The sponsors may also not give the OK to release the category, and, at the same time, there may be no requirement for that particular sponsor to be involved. For example, at the 1992 World XC in Boston, Olivetti was the IAAF sponsor in the computer category. They did not sell computers in the US. There was a US computer company interested in sponsorship, but neither IAAF nor Olivetti would release the category and Olivetti simply provided computer results, nothing further. There was no local sponsorship from the US company.
So, that said, the significant sponsor conflicts and restrictions currently prevent using the mass participation races as the trials vs staging a stand-alone trials event. (I believe both races would have preferred such a scenario).
And, finally, one of the reasons that the Trials announcement was pushed back two months from the planned Boston Marathon weekend to the US TF Champ's weekend was because of the negotiations among all the lawyers and marketing officers of the respective organizations involved.
Steve Vaitones